Similarities
by Soobin
Summary: Castiel pays a visit to a certain hunter in Duluth, Minnesota. no pairing, hints of one-sided Dean/Jo


**Title: **Similarities

**Summary:** Castiel pays a visit to a certain hunter in Duluth, Minnesota.

**Characters:** Castiel, Jo [hints of one-sided Jo/Dean]

**A/N: **So I wrote a one-shot featuring everyone's favourite angel and Jo. This is an awkward piece of text and I'm not too happy with how it turned out. But I love Jo, dearly. Any constructive criticism would be welcomed. I'm kind of new to the fandom and still have to find out how to get a good grip on the characters.

Castiel knew exactly the reason for which he had come here, to this shabby bar at the port of Duluth, Minnesota. He had come here to clear up some assumptions he had made about Dean, the human in his charge, but right now he did not consider it the best decision to have been made anymore. It did not feel like being in the right place at the right time. For the first time, in an eternal existence, Castiel felt _villainous_.

This he thought as he was watching the young human woman in front of him. From a human point of view, she would surely be considered quite pretty, from his point of view she was still pretty, for a human at least. She was petite, with blond hair, brown eyes. There was something _clean_ about her face that could be interpreted as innocence but was supposedly just the result of neat proportions and assembly of nose, eyes and mouth. It contrasted with the angry wrinkle between her eyebrows and the rifle in her hands.

He was taking too long to answer.

"Who the hell are you?" she repeated, louder now. Her frame was shaking; she was obviously afraid of him, the man that had suddenly appeared out-of-nowhere at her working place after she had already locked the door, but she tried desperately to keep in check of her emotions. She held the rifle tightly and pointed it at him, like her life depended on it which it probably would have in different circumstances, but not right now. He assumed it might prove to be difficult to convince her that he meant her no harm at all.

"My name is Castiel." He said simply.

His name did not help the situation. It was too _foreign_, too strange to be a human's, he knew that and she knew that, too. Her shoulders squared defensively. If her character bared just small similarities to Dean's, no faith in anything religious, she would conclude in seconds that he had to be a demon and would shoot him. It would be a shame for his vessel.

"You crossed the salt." She threw at him, nearly sounding reproachful. She was paying attention. It confused her that he was able to do that, a demon would have been hindered by it.

"I am not bothered by salt at all, Joanna." He took a step closer to where she was standing behind the bar. She did not like that. The rock salt hit him, tearing holes into the clothing of his vessel. He heard her gasp and saw her eyes widen as she did not see him vanishing. Obviously, she had concluded that, if he was not a demon, he was a ghost. Clever girl.

She was quivering a bit now.

"What are you?" she demanded furiously, bothered by her futile advances. There was still fear in her eyes, but now annoyance as well. It made her eyes darken a little.

"I am an angel of the Lord." The moment he saw the wrinkle return to its place between her eyebrow he vanished into thin air and reappeared behind the bar at her side. With a smooth, swift movement he pulled the rifle from her grasp, positioning it out of her reach. She was not religious. He wondered what the problem with those hunters was. Why was it so hard for them to believe in angels or God? They had seen more of the supernatural than the average human being. They should have more faith if they had _survived_ those encounters.

She was easy to read, like an open book.

"Thomas Jefferson died in 1826. You cannot be him, because he was firstly, a man, and secondly, he was taller than you." She jumped a step back, surprised, but her expression quickly changed to anger.

"Hey, did you just mess around in my head?"

He saw her eyes flicker to the rifle behind him and quickly added: "I am an acquaintance of Dean."

That revelation made her expression look more stunned than angry. He would have also sworn he saw a brief hint of hurt flicker across her face. She knew which Dean he meant, for she did not ask for a last name. Castiel did not know, but for Joanna Beth Harvelle, there was only one man in the world with that name that would ever matter to her.

"What do you want?" she half-growled. He had been right about the slight hurt. "I mean you no harm, Joanna. I came here to talk to you about Dean. He mentioned you in a conversation with his brother." He would not say what kind of conversation it had been between the two Winchesters. The woman in front of him laughed, more of a forced breath, putting a hand on her forehand as if the situation was too hard and ridiculous for her to bear. "What would _an angel of the Lord _want from Dean Winchester? Are you trying to keep him from fornication?"

"I met him because of more serious matters than that." He stated. She stopped any movement for a second, then sighed. "You really are an angel, aren't you?" She turned and went backwards, around the bar, he followed her. "What convinces you of that now?" he wondered out loud, watching her closely. For the first time, her gaze met his eyes steadily, her expression neutral. "I don't know. Your name. The creepy disappearing-then-reappearing. Maybe it's the way you talk. It unnerves me."

He kept looking at her quizzically and she realised she would have to go into more detail. Some curious angel.

"It's the way you choose your words. They are... simple but efficient. You don't say more than necessary. Then your tone. It didn't change the whole time."

Castiel nodded slightly. He was not as influenced by emotions as humans were. Emotions were in every human behaviour, in movements, the tone of voice. Right now there was impatience in the perfect curve of her lifted right brow.

"I want to know more about Dean."

"Being an angel, you probably know more about him than I do." she muttered, her mouth twisting sideways. "I haven't heard of him for a long time." The addition made him realise that she did not know of his death, his time in hell and his _rebirth_.

He stood perfectly still while she leaned against the bar. She was surprisingly calm now, he did not know that she was contemplating dreaming all of this encounter and conversation. This was too weird to be real, even for a hunter like her.

"Probably, but I need a more human understanding of his character." She frowned again and he elaborated. "There are a lot facets of humanity that are ... _difficult_ to understand for me. I thought you capable of helping me."

Jo felt a surge of pride wash through her at the thought of somebody, even an angel, thinking her so involved with Dean Winchester that she might understand facets of him that somebody would not get while observing him from the outside, but she also felt strangely used. She was just a tool for information and that made her angry. His way of speaking aggravated her as well. He was so precise, so confident, so sure that she felt even more insecure, weak and fickle.

"I'm not that close to Dean at all. That's what I can tell you: He's an annoying, hamburger-loving, women-screwing idiot. I was never..." She struggled with the word. "... involved with him. You should bother asking his brother."

So Dean had never pursued her in the way he usually pursued women. Castiel was confused for a moment, not by that fact alone, but that she sounded a bit sour about it.

"You seem to know him well enough to get annoyed by him." He observed neutrally, watching her facial expression clear in an attempt to avoid him getting to see too much of her inside. "I want to know how he functions."

"Function?" She seemed insulted by such a word. "Humans aren't machines!" She scowled angrily at him, gripping the edge of the bar, but she went on. "He functions like every man. He eats, he drinks, he sleep, he drives around with his brother. He's a hunter. He's always _busy_." She thought of how Dean had promised to call her, of how she had known that he would not fulfil that promise and of how she had been disappointed and hurt nevertheless. She felt so stupid. Castiel did not seem to notice though.

"I am not talking about biological things. I am talking about the human things; loyalties, motivations..." She was surprised that he, Mr. Eloquent-speech, had to force the last word out. "... doubts... There is the loyalty for his brother." It was obvious that she was not understanding why he would be interested in such things, but he could not tell her the backgrounds. She had to give him answers and she would not know what he might do with them in the end.

"Yeah, Sam..." she muttered thoughtfully, "He's protective of him, Sam's his little brother after all. Motivations...?" She mulled that over.

Castiel elaborated, "What would make him do something he would normally not consider doing?" That made her suspicious, he saw that, but she answered nevertheless.

He wondered where her loyalties might lie.

"He protects the people he feels responsible for. That doesn't always only include the people he thinks of as important or dear to him." She murmured the last sentence under her breath, then her gaze settled clearly on him again. "You are using him, aren't you? What for? Why do you want to know these things? Is he on some holy mission?" She was joking on the last part.

He ignored that, but inside, he was confused by the changes this human made between perceptiveness and childish sulking. He did not understand.

"What relation do you have with Dean Winchester?" he asked, interested.

That seemed to catch her on the wrong foot.

"What do you _care_?" she yelled, taking a step back and stepping out of the range of a normal conversation. It would feel awkward talking about not-so-public matters now. She was furious. "Why do you mess with that? Why did you come here? I told you I'm not an information desk!"

He was shocked by the sudden urge to step closer to her, the urge to grab her upper arm to stop her from moving further away from him. He still considered her a great source of information. From what he had learned about humans in the last weeks, he knew that if Dean was such a touchy subject for this girl, she knew him well enough to get hurt by him.

"You are giving me information without talking to me." He murmured softly.

Meanwhile, Jo felt lost. She was angry and confused. She felt manipulated. She felt like an open book.

"Stop that!" she growled, "Stop doing this! I don't want this. I can't help you."

"That's what Dean said to me as well." The angel in front of her cocked his head to one side and the quizzical look was back on his face. "This is confusing. You say you can't help me, but the problem is you don't _want_ to help me. You say you are not capable of doing something, but really you do not feel the motivation to do it. Do you consider yourself so weak?" He took a step closer, making her feel more uncomfortable. "No, you avoid. You avoid unpleasant things. You _disobey_ your own mind."

She was silent for a minute, but to her, it felt like hours. The angel did not seem to mind. His words had hit home, he was right, and the words were out of her mouth before she had thought them over.

"Yes, that's what we are. We humans. Selfish. We avoid things and situations that make us uncomfortable. We avoid getting hurt. Sometimes we act stupidly and get hurt and that leaves a mark on us. We cower and cry and then we search someone we can blame. I have no one to blame but myself and that is the worst of it. I'm a fellow hunter from Dean's point of view, if I'm even that."

She was proud she did not cry in front of him, but she had had practice in the last year. She was all grown-up now, but she was nowhere near finished.

"I'm tired of this! All of this! Tired of his promises, his smiles, his looks!" She stomped her foot, but not in a childish way, just a way to vent her anger. "He's like the other hunters. He doesn't respect me either."

She thought of her mother, lecturing her. She thought of her father, sometimes leaving for weeks, his grave. She thought of her mother, crying, angry. Why did they not understand? Being a hunter was the only way she could be close to her father!

"He considers you too young."

Castiel did not know how the conversation hat taken this turn and what had been the cause of it. This girl, this woman, this hunter in front of him, she was _so_ young. Young of experiences, young of age, young of mind. He understood why Dean had avoided getting too close too her even before he had been in Hell. This was the reason why he had refused to _acknowledge_ her.

He was able to see on her face that she had taken that sentence as an insult, that she did not see that it would be a compliment under different circumstances. He felt weary now, tired, old. This girl was trying so desperately to be known by someone. She reminded him of someone who had volunteered to pull a human soul out of hell, just for the possibility of God's acknowledgement.

He had been trying to be known, too.

It frightened him, this similarity with a human, and he vanished.


End file.
